Teaching and learning about religious diversity in the past and present: Beyond stereotypes.

Ed. Karal Van Nieuwenhuyse, John Maiden, Stefanie Sinclair

Palgrave 2024

In this impressive new volume, key documents drawn up at different times over the last 600 years are presented to show how societies have sought to deal with religious diversity and to promote peace and toleration. In doing so, the authors have created a valuable resource for teachers – particularly of RE, Citizenship, History and PSHE – with approaches for talking about religious difference in the classroom.

My journey to the Religion and Worldviews world began, strangely enough, in an International Relations lecture theatre. Having worked for interfaith and community cohesion organisations for many years, I decided to begin an International Relations Masters at SOAS where I hoped to apply my experiences into a new context. However, as I sat in lecture after lecture I found myself becoming more and more dismayed by the gap I saw between my experience of working with and through religion and religious communities, and the way in which religion was understood and described by contemporary scholars of International Relations. And it was in that context which I first engaged with the Treaties of Westphalia (a set of treaties which ended the Thirty Years War in Europe) and which are the focus of one of the chapters in this book.
Many scholars, as well as those with an interest in the history of Europe during the early Modern period, see Westphalia as the birth of the modern State System (in other words, the way in which sovereign nation states relate and engage with one another). However, what caught my imagination was the way in which Westphalia sought to make sense of the religious diversity of Europe which had played a part in fueling that War.

For me, engaging with the Treaty through a lens of thinking about how societies tried to navigate religious diversity so as to prevent conflict and violence was a real light-bulb moment. Here, however imperfect to my 21st century mind their attempts might have been, was a point of contact and connection. I found it enlightening to think about how people in a different time, tried to resolve challenges which we continue to grapple with today.

And it is that which is at the heart of this book. Each chapter takes a different example and encourages the reader to consider how different people at different times have sought to come up with the language and frameworks for cooperation and peaceful relations in their diverse communities. By presenting the nine examples in the same volume, from places as diverse as 16th century Poland, 18th century France and 21st century Turkey, the reader is actively supported to think about the different approaches people have taken and to think about what these approaches might say about their own communities and contexts. What is particularly exciting is the way in which the authors have included links to diverse primary and secondary sources and guiding questions which can be used in the classroom to stimulate and enrich discussion and learning. The addition of a chapter which explores, in broad terms, approaches to religious diversity in different eras, recognising the relationship and influences between Christianity, Islam and Judaism, as well as other religious traditions, is helpful for framing all nine case studies.

This is a really excellent book, full of surprising insights and nuggets (having spent a year as an undergrad in Granada I was fascinated by the description of the annual Toma de Granada celebration which made me both nostalgic and anxious to see the ceremony one year) and I can clearly picture how it could be used to enrich the teaching of RE/ RME/RVE/Religion and worldviews. Moreover, I think this book makes an important and timely contribution to wider conversations about the place of religion in society.